Sicilian needlework stories wait to be told

My grandmother Rose Russo embroidered
this in the early 1900s. 

Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. Dig as I might, I find little about the cutwork embroidery and other needlework done by immigrant Sicilian and other Italian women in early 20th century Florida. Yet I know it was being done.

I wonder where those works of art are today. Handed down in families? Or are they the pieces I see for sale on eBay, Facebook and elsewhere online?

The question arose after I recently took out and refolded the family heirloom linens I inherited. My Sicilian immigrant grandmother created them in New York City between 1910 and 1918. In the same era, a sizeable cluster of Sicilian immigrant women lived and worked in Tampa's Ybor City. Information about their role in the city's cigar-making industries is fairly easy to locate. Information about their domestic lives, not so much.

Yet, as historian and USF professor emeritus Gary Mormino pointed out in a 1983 Florida Historical Quarterly article about Ybor City Italian women, it was family - not work - that was the primary focus of these women. That was true even when they worked outside the home.

Everyone labored to ensure the family survived and thrived. In the early 20th century, Sicilian children routinely were pulled from school and sent to work. My grandmother had only a third-grade education. Her counterparts in Florida had similar experiences.

Mormino's article isn't about needlework. But within it, a sentence tells me how much the traditional and cultural Sicilian skill remained an integral part of immigrant life in Ybor City: "While at home, Italian women somehow found time to continue the handicraft arts of sewing, crocheting, and embroidering."

My Sicilian grandmother worked in a sweatshop, yet turned out beautiful embroidered needlework including the piece pictured with this blog. She was from the same region of Sicily as most of the Sicilian women in Ybor City. Needlework was an important part of their lives. It wasn't a hobby as it is today for me. They were making bed and table linens for their trousseaus. They were preparing for future family life.

So, I have a lot of questions. Did these women in Tampa sit and sew together? Did they bring handworks-in-progress to community outings? Did the needlework provide cultural closeness to all they'd left behind? Where did the designs come from? What stores supplied the fabric and thread? Were the materials mailed to the women by relatives? 

Above all, where did all that beautiful cutwork embroidery and other needlework go? I speak of the pieces that were special, not the everyday ones used until threadbare. Some of the fine needlework is artistic and belongs in museums. Is it showcased anywhere?

Traditionally, the finest pieces were handed down. But even that practice is fading. Younger generations aren't as interested in the heirloom linens. Yet each piece has a face, a life, a story behind it. They cry out to be remembered.

A game of el riquito, anyone?

Immigrant youth in Ybor City added an
ethnic flavor to games and pastimes in the
late 1800s and early 1900s. Photo
credit: State Archives of Florida

Back in 2002-2003, the Ybor City Museum Society hosted an exhibit about childhood pastimes during Ybor City's early years. I didn't see "Growing Up Ybor," but do have a copy of the 10-page booklet that accompanied the four-month exhibit.

What exactly did youngsters do in their spare time in the Tampa neighborhood at the turn of the last century? Because some of them had no spare time. 

The exhibit booklet's section on "Childhood's End" quickly drew me, in part because it references Italians. I'm always on the lookout for domestic history about people who share my heritage.

I learned the U.S. Census in 1900 reported that almost a third - more than 30% - of Italian cigar workers in Ybor City were ages 5 to 19. So much for playtime. They and other immigrant youth also had to help out at home and in family businesses, and attend school.

All wasn't dour, though. Although I think of Ybor City in that era as populated primarily by Cubans and Italians, it also housed immigrants from Spain, Germany, Romania and elsewhere. Children of each ethnicity introduced traditional games and pastimes, such as a Mediterranean singing game or re-enactments of Spanish or Italian folk tales.

The children also adopted American games and pastimes - even though they often used their native languages to describe them. The booklet states that "... stick-ball was el riquiti, jump rope was bailando la Suiza and jacks became las Yaquis."

Often, toys were handmade. They included dolls, dollhouses, button yo-yos, and scooters made of a skate and scrap wood. Store-bought items might include pick-up sticks, paper dolls, toy trucks and soldiers, and marbles. Pretty much what you'd expect in an early American childhood anywhere in the United States at that time.

When movies arrived, neighborhood youth flocked to local theaters on Saturdays in Ybor City just as they did elsewhere. Truly, we're all much more alike than different, in so many ways, across so many years.